Did Welsh women really wear the high crowned black hat
that often appears in pictures which purport to portray historic Welsh costume?
The answer is yes, but this must be qualified. It seems to the writer that 19th.
century romanticism gave the tall hat an importance that it did not really
deserve. The drawing above is based on a carving in Llanvetherine church near
Abergavenny in south Wales and is thought to represent the wife of a vicar who
died in 1621. This is, however, a very rare example and I found no further
instances of such headgear in a fairly comprehensive survey of Welsh memorial
church brasses. In fact, the women portrayed in these memorials are more likely
to be wearing a hat which resembles the American Stetson!

The following extracts (all culled from "Letters
from Wales" edited by Joan Abse, Seren, 2000) demonstrate that the tall hat
was a common sight in the first half of the 19th. century, at least in north and
mid Wales.

Alfred, Lord Tennyson,
writing from Aberystwyth in 1839. "I cannot say that I have seen
much worth the trouble of the journey, always excepting the Welsh-women's hats
which look very comical to an English eye, being in truth men's hats, beavers,
with the brim a little broad, and tied under the chin with a black ribband. Some
faces look very pretty in them."

Charles Greville, writing
from north Wales in1841. "It has an odd effect to see the women with
their high-crowned, round hats on in church; the dress is not unbecoming."
And later: "The women, in point of costume, have no resemblance to English
women. Besides the round hats which they almost all wear. and which, though not
unbecoming, give them a peculiar air, a great many of them though not all of
them, wear a sort of sandal on their feet ... "

Nathaniel Hawthorne, writing
from north Wales in 1854. (Hawthorne made several visits to north Wales during
his stint as American Consul in Liverpool). "Many of the Welsh
women, particularly the elder ones, wear black beaver hats, high crowned and
almost precisely like men's. It makes them look ugly and witch-like. Welsh is
still the prevalent language ... "

But can we assume that such hats had remained in fashion
since the 17th. century? This seems unlikely. In 1834, Augusta Hall, Lady
Llanover, won a prize for an essay on the "advantages of preserving the
language and dress of Wales" at the National Eisteddfod in Cardiff.
Although of English parentage, Lady Llanover had become an ardent supporter of
Welsh traditions and customs. Servants at her estate in south Wales were issued
with her concept of a Welsh costume and she invented (and published) a series of
costumes which were supposed to be typical of the various Welsh counties. Her
aim was to revive the Welsh flannel industry but there seems little doubt that
she succeeded in skewing our concept of Welsh costume. (Unwittingly, she also
succeeded in skewing, for many years, our understanding of Welsh history by
becoming a patron of the antiquarian and manuscript forger Iolo Morganwg - but
that's another story!)

In his wonderful little book "The South Wales
Squires" (published in 1926) Herbert M. Vaughan observed rather acidly:
"Like many aliens of a fanatical nature, Lady Llanover ruthlessly inflicted
her new fad on all and sundry. As the countryside around Llanover was wholly
anglicized, she met this difficulty by importing a number of monoglot
Welsh-speaking Methodists from North Cardiganshire, and their pastor with them:
a step that naturally did not please the local vicar, with whom her ladyship
speedily fell out". (For another viewpoint see Helen Forder's Lady
Llanofer>)